"You know it's all your fault right?" Seifer told the girl he now knew as Selphie, finally realizing whom Quistis was referring to during the span of their breakfast together.
"What? Me? I don't think so. I saved your life remember? Large brute that I helped get off you? I know veteran soldiers suffer from memory lapses, but surely you're not that old. Right?
"Besides, if you'd stuck with her and the other two brutes, she'd still be here!" Selphie scoffed at him spitefully, giving him a taste of his own medicine.
Seifer stared at her incredulously.
Is she out of her mind?
"Are you out of your mind! If I didn't come after you, you'd be on that beast right now! And you did not save me! I had it under control." He glared at her, his anger mixed with concern for the girl if the outcome had been different.
Selphie glared back.
"Yeah right. You were as blue as Helga's blueberry muffins!" Selphie muttered, turning away from their staring contest, getting very sick and tired of trading barbs with the idiot.
"Oh please! You just had to leave the coach, after what I said earlier. Which would be to NOT leave it!"
"I was helping!"
"No! You weren't!"
O
O
O
O
They continued sparring all the way back to the coach. By the time they arrived, they were red in the face.
"Sir! Five of the men are injured. We lost two. Henry...and Mercer," Nida, one of his lower ranking officers informed Seifer.
He cursed as he heard that their party had dwindled drastically. The ambush had led to lost lives and lost blood, and Seifer blamed himself for not being privy to it until the arrows were already in the air - until it was already too late.
"Thank you, Nida. I will inform you of our plan later." Nida nodded and took off, hurrying back to aid their only healer with the injured.
Seifer remained silent, lost in his self-loathing.
"Seifer?" the sprite-like girl called quietly.
He turned towards her, blankly.
"It wasn't your fault. You did what you could to protect us. Your men understood what they were in for. You couldn't possibly have known what the enemy had planned," Selphie told him, trying to soothe the torrent of self-deprecating thoughts that she guessed were going through his head.
"Thanks," he told her, his voice for once clear of the snarky attitude with which he usually addressed her.
With that, he left her alone as he went to converse with his men.